Say You'll Stay (Return to Me #1)(5)

Getting through the next few days is going to take a miracle. Everyone is on their way while we try to get from one minute to the next.

Cayden and Logan won’t leave my side. We’re curled up on the couch, each on one side of me. They barely speak. The television is on, but no one is watching. Each of us drowning in our grief.

Angie makes some soup, but I can’t eat.

“What happens now?” Cayden asks.

“What do you mean?”

My tears have finally dried. I don’t have any left. I’m numb and lost.

His eyes are filled with fear. “Will we have to move? Do we get to see Daddy again?”

“No, honey, we won’t have to move. I have to make arrangements, and we’ll have a service for your dad.” I don’t know how to answer him about seeing his father. “I’m not sure if you’ll see him again, baby.”

“Oh.” He looks away despondently. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“Sorry? What could you be sorry for, sweetheart?”

Cayden’s green eyes close as a tear falls. “I should’ve gone upstairs. I could’ve—”

“No, baby. This isn’t anything you could’ve stopped.”

Logan sniffles. “I sat here playing video games, too. Dad needed us.”

“Boys.” I get up, turning to face them. “I need you to listen to me.” I wait for them to acknowledge me before I continue. “You did nothing wrong. You couldn’t have saved him. Do you understand me?”

Neither says a word—they just cry. And the tears I thought dried, become rivers down my cheeks. Why, Todd? Why?





“I’ M SO SORRY FOR YOUR loss,” says a nameless face who is standing in front of me after the burial. Everyone is nice, all sympathetic, but I don’t care. I’m sure they’re sorry. They all wish me and the boys the best. But I see the pity in their eyes.

Maybe it’s my paranoia, but I hear their whispers to each other on why it was a closed casket when it was a heart attack. I feel their gazes as they watch me stand motionless over the gravesite, unable to place my rose there.

If they only knew. They didn’t have to take the call from the funeral home saying they couldn’t cover the bruises or ligature marks. They don’t understand the way my heart clenches each time someone asks how he passed. The bitter lie I utter. They’re all praying for us, and I’m praying they leave us alone. I shake their hands and allow their hugs, but I’m empty.

More people leave, but all I focus on is the body lying in the casket.

“How could you do this?” I grasp the flower in my hand. “How could you think this was the answer?” The thorn pricks at my skin. “We had a life. We had a family.” A tear falls. I look around and see Angie by her car and my mother standing by hers. Cayden and Logan sit in the car with my daddy. He’s been the only person they want to be around. Cayden still won’t speak much, but Logan won’t stop. They’re coping—barely.

Everyone gives me some time alone as I bid farewell to my husband.

“You’re really gone.” I brush my hand across the smooth wood casket, rubbing my fingers back and forth. “I feel so many things right now. I guess this is goodbye.” My voice cracks. “I guess this is where I leave you and the life we had in the ground.” I catch my breath. I lift the rose and place it down. The single rose stands apart from the rest, which sit in a pile. “Goodbye, Todd.”

Tears fall, and my knees give out. My hand rests against the wood as I sob.

Minutes pass, and my tears dry, but I can’t move. When I leave this place, it’ll be the end of us. He’s been gone for a week, but this will really be it.

“You ready, sugar?” Mama asks. She squats before taking my hand in hers.

“No,” I say, staring at the hole in the ground where my husband’s body will rest.

“You’re going to be okay, Presley.” She leans back and reassures me, “I know it’s hard, but you’re a strong woman.”

I look at my mother, begging with my eyes for her to give me something to help with the pain. “Mama?”

Her lips purse as she rubs the side of my face. “I can’t take this away from you. Lord, how I wish I could.” Her eyes fill with moisture as her hand drops, gripping each of mine. “You’re strong, though. You always were the strongest of all of us. Not many have the guts to chase something they want. Look at what you did. Moving on, going to school, makin’ something of your life.”

“Look where that got me.”

“Hey, now.” Her stern, Southern voice leaves no room for debate. “You got those boys. You have a home, a business, and you’ve done well for yourself. Things that you might not have if you’d stayed on the ranch. You couldn’t wait to get out of Bell Buckle, and while it wasn’t the way you planned, it led you to Todd. That man loved you all more than anything. He didn’t leave this world or you willingly.”

I can’t stop the hysterical laugh that escapes me. My chest constricts as I feel the first twinge of anger. I stand quickly while balling my fists at my side. “Mama, if that were the truth I—” I stop, realizing that I almost told her that it wasn’t a heart attack. “Let’s just go.”